


Our Golden Days

by ChiiwiFruit



Category: And The World Will Turn To Ash - Fandom, Pokemon GO
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiiwiFruit/pseuds/ChiiwiFruit
Summary: A series of childhood oneshots for the leaders in celebration of the third year of And the World Will Turn to Ash by Surfacage.





	1. Ghosts Beware!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surfacage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surfacage/gifts).

“_This_ is your uncle’s ship?” Carl asked, frowning.

He was standing on the dock in Vermillion City next to his best friend in the world, who was being his typical annoying self and bouncing everywhere, trying to look at everything at once. He bounced back to Carl’s side, beaming proudly at the enormous, sleek white passenger liner that rocked lazily in the gentle waves.

“Yes! The S.S. Anne!” Spark said, raising his hands above his head to indicate the ship that loomed above them.

“...It’s not very nice, is it?” Carl asked, squinting at the ship to try and see it better through the glare of sunlight reflecting off white paint, but the expression probably added to the air of criticism.

“What?” Spark yelped. Indignant, he turned on Carl. “Uncle Surge’s ship is the _best!_ You’ll see!”

At that moment, Surge tromped up behind them, their bags slung over his broad shoulders. “Nice of you boys to leave me with all the bags,” he grunted. He swung Spark’s bag off his shoulder and thumped it into the boy’s chest, knocking him back a few inches and making his nephew laugh.

He turned to Carl and the white-haired boy tensed automatically, expecting Surge to slam his bag into his chest like he had with Spark. Instead, Surge held it out by the strap. “And _you_. Arceus, this bag is heavy. What have you got in here, rocks?”

“Um, no,” Carl muttered. “I... may have overpacked. Slightly. Only slightly!” He snapped at Spark who had started snickering beside him. “It’s your fault I need two first aid kits anyway, you walking disaster!”

“Oookay, time for boarding,” Surge said, grabbing both boys by the shoulders and propelling them toward the ramp. This effectively cut off the fight that would have broken out between the two boys without his intervention.

Once they were onboard, Surge happily ditched the boys with the vague directive to “Explore! Have fun, kids!” before disappearing into a section of the ship that Spark and Carl weren’t allowed to enter, reasoning that there wasn’t much trouble they could get into with ocean on all sides.

Although Surge no longer sailed regularly on the S.S. Anne and hadn’t since he’d taken Spark in, he still brought Spark aboard often enough that his nephew was very proudly able to give Carl a tour. First, he showed Carl the room that they would be sharing on the voyage.

Carl frowned at it, unmoved by his friend’s pride. “It’s small.”

“It is not! Why ya gotta be such a downer, Carl?”

Still, Carl set his bag on the end of one of the two beds, claiming it for the trip. Spark would want the bed next to the window, and he could have it as far as Carl was concerned. There was nothing to see but the sky and water anyway, and that would get tedious after ten minutes.

“And this is the galley! That means kitchen, Carl.”

“...I know that, Spark. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone alive knows that.”

Spark pouted at his friend as Carl turned away and paced down the hallway. Spark trotted to catch up and tapped the back of Carl’s hand, harder than he had probably intended, but Carl didn’t complain. “Hey, what gives? You in a bad mood or something?” Spark asked. The pout had vanished, and his big sky blue eyes were full of concern.

Before Carl could answer in the negative, Spark continued speaking. “You homesick? Wanna call your Nana?”

Carl’s assurances dissolved in a glare. “I’m not a baby, Spark,” he said, walking faster to try and leave his friend behind. Spark simply trotted faster and kept up easily, the athletic brat.

“’S nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone gets homesick.”

The total sincerity with which Spark delivered this statement only annoyed Carl further. Homesick! As if! “I just wasn’t expecting the ship you bragged about for _months_ to be such a dump. My family has several ships, and all of them are better than this.”

“Well, it ain’t a luxury liner, Carl. Us normal folks gotta get around too-”

There was a sudden burst of loud static from the open doorway they were passing. Both boys jumped. Through the doorway the room was in shadows. The boys paused, glancing at each other like, should we go check it out?

Absolutely.

They poked their heads through the doorway into the small sitting room. It was old fashioned, though it was hard to put a finger on what gave that impression. Maybe it was the carved arms on the chairs or all the plush fabrics. Dated, Carl thought. That was the right term. Plus the floral wallpaper and the doilies gave it a feminine feel.

Against the far wall was a big screen TV. As they watched, another blast of static exploded from the speakers. Bright colours flashed across the screen, fading as the sound did. Carl thumped Spark on the shoulder.

“Quit it!”

“_Ouch!_ Quit what?” Spark demanded, rubbing his shoulder and giving Carl a look of betrayal.

Carl gestured at the television. “That!” he snapped. Another burst of static punctuated the statement.

“I ain’t doing that, Carl. Just ‘cuz something electrical goes on the fritz doesn’t mean it’s me doing it.”

Carl gave his friend a hard look, trying to tell if Spark was telling the truth or if he was making the TV act weird to freak Carl out as revenge for criticizing Surge’s ship. But Spark’s eyes were blue and guileless, and anyway, he’d always been a terrible liar.

“Well, it’s creepy. Let’s get out of here,” Carl said, pulling out of the doorway. Spark followed. They made it three steps down the hall when the lights cut out.

Carl sucked in a sharp breath. “That ain’t me either!” Spark said defensively. Carl had grabbed his arm lightning-fast and was digging his nails into Spark’s flesh.

“Are. You. Sure?” Carl ground out, because it wouldn’t be the first time Zapdos had taken over and decided to play a prank on a silly mortal. And Carl, being Spark’s best friend, was most often around for that.

Spark opened his mouth to retort, and the hair on the back of Carl’s neck prickled. He whirled, and found himself slammed against the wall with Spark’s back pressed against his chest. Spark’s posture was stiff. Electric currents danced between his spread fingers, and the telltale scent of ozone confirmed that Spark wasn’t the one in control.

Just as quickly, the sparks faded and the blond relaxed back into himself. Carl waited until Spark had taken a step away, then asked “What was that about?”

Spark shrugged. “Felt a spooky thing.”

“A spooky thing?” Carl thought about the ominous feeling that had accompanied the neck prickle. Huh. “You know what? Let’s go back on the deck.”

He grabbed Spark’s hand to drag him above deck, when he felt it again. The neck prickle. The ominous feeling. And this time, the faint brush of wind. A sinister chuckle.

Dropping Spark’s hand, he spun back around again in time to see a dark shadow shoot between two open doorways. Doors that he had not heard open, and that had not been open when he turned away.

“This is creepy,” Spark whispered, and Carl shushed him. A grin materialized in front of them as a darker shadow approached out of the blackness. No, make that several shadows.

“Ghost Pokemon,” he muttered to Spark out of the side of his mouth. He felt more than saw the blond nod.

They turned as one to move away from the shifting mass of ghost Pokemon, but there were more behind them.

Carl’s hand slipped inside his bag, finding a pokeball and gripping it tightly. He only had Bob and James with him. The psychic type Pokemon would be no match for the ghost types that had them surrounded.

There was a sound like a manic giggle, then something orange and shimmering with blue sparks zipped out of the room with the TV and down the hall. The ghost pokemon turned to look, and Spark’s hand clamped around Carl’s wrist.

“Now,” he breathed, and with no more warning than that he leaped forward and ran through the cloud of ghost pokemon, dragging Carl behind them.

Carl let out an involuntary yell as he was hauled forward and his eyes flinched closed as a Gengar loomed ahead of him. He passed underneath it and Spark dove into a room, slamming the door behind them. Carl braced his hands on his knees, panting, irked that Spark didn’t even seem winded.

“That won’t stop them, you know,” Carl said, some of his annoyance showing in his tone as Spark locked the door.

“Lemme think, Carl,” Spark said. He turned and leaned back against the door, frowning. The room was dark, so Carl looked around until he found the light switch. Flipping it on revealed that they had taken refuge in a laundry room.

A mechanical hum made both boys look up in surprise as one of the washing machines powered on, running briskly despite the fact that there were no clothes inside it and nobody had turned it on. Spark and Carl stared at it, and Spark shuffled closer to Carl.

“That’s creepy,” he murmured to Carl, who nodded.

The washing machine whined in insult, and the door flew open loosing a torrent of water at the boys. Spark was athletic enough to be able to dodge, but he was so shocked at being attacked by a washing machine that he didn’t think to move until he got smacked in the face by the stream.

Gasping and choking, the boys rolled in opposite directions to get out of the line of fire. The washing machine giggled, and the orange sparky thing leaped from the washing machine and into the ceiling fan. The motor whirred, and the fan blades began to turn. Soon the blades were turning so fast and with such force that both boys were pinned to the floor by the gale.

“It’s a pokemon,” Carl managed to gasp out, even as the wind tore his breath away. “It has to be.”

Somehow, Spark stood upright despite the force of the wind. Carl shivered - he knew the look in Spark’s eyes. Apparently the Pokemon in the ceiling fan did too, because as Spark lifted hands full of lightning, an orange blob dropped out of the ceiling fan to cower on the floor.

The winds stopped, and Carl could breathe again. He sat up, pushing his disordered hair out of his face, as Spark faced the orange pokemon.

“Play time’s over,” Spark said in a voice that wasn’t boyish enough to be Spark’s. “You will leave in peace, or you will leave in pieces. Begone.”

Humming with fright, the orange pokemon darted into the circuitry. The wires buzzed as the pokemon moved along them and faded as the pokemon left the room.

“What was that?” Carl asked. He clambered to his feet and frowned down at his white shorts, which had gotten scuffed when he rolled around on the floor.

“Rotom. It’s playful and generally harmless, but rather annoying,” Zapdos replied using Spark’s mouth. Then it was gone, and Spark was back. He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes widened. “Woah.”

Carl turned. At least a dozen ghost pokemon had poked their faces through the wall and were staring at Spark with a mix of awe and fear. A Haunter even fled back through the wall when Spark approached the door.

“I wonder where all these guys came from,” Spark commented.

“You mean your uncle’s ship isn’t supposed to be haunted?”

“Of course not!” The ghost pokemon moved to either side as Spark and Carl moved down the hall. “I dunno where they came from, Carl, but they’re not supposed to be here.”

“Hey! Where’d you kids get off to?”

Spark’s face broke into a grin. “Back here, Uncle Surge!” he called, waving an arm, which was pointless because Lt. Surge wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Lt. Surge’s boots could be heard clomping down the stairs, and he appeared at the end of the hall. He stopped dead when he saw the pokemon - a mix of Haunter and Gengar, a handful of Ghastly, a single Shuppet - and frowned. “ARNOLD!” he bellowed, making both boys jump. “Arnold, get yer ass out here!”

A door near the boys opened, and a pale teen slunk out. He had a sullen expression and limp black hair that drooped into his eyes. “It’s not Arnold, Sir. It’s Xavier now. It’s cooler,” the teen said in a tone that matched his expression.

“Whatever. I thought I told ya to keep ‘em in their pokeballs!” Surge gestured at the pokemon. “Not let them run rampant around my ship! Put ‘em away.”

Xavier sniffed. “They wanted to explore. There’s hardly anyone here anyway, and they lend atmosphere.”

“Yeah, well, play vampire on your own property. Put ‘em away, or you can swim back to shore.”

Still pouting, the teen secured the Pokemon in a small pile of pokeballs before slinking back into his room. The door clicked quietly closed behind him.

With that problem taken care of, Lt. Surge studied his nephew and Carl. It may be the man’s military training, but Carl suddenly, inexplicably, felt like he had done something wrong. Then Surge grinned, and the feeling faded. “Sorry about that, boys. Xavier’s an odd one. I shoulda warned you about him. How about you two go get changed for dinner. You look like you’ve been rolling around on the floor.”

##

Fresh from a shower, Spark flopped on the bed next to Carl, making him bounce. Carl muttered a protest, and was blinded by a flash of light that made him blink and swear. The first thing he saw when his vision cleared was Spark’s very white teeth bared in a grin. And a camera lens, shoved right in his face.

“What are you doing?” he grumbled, but shifted over so that he was no longer half-pinned under Spark.

Like an excited pokemon, Spark wiggled into a comfortable position next to him and held the camera up at face level. “Smile, Carl!” he said as the flash went off again. “This’ll be a great memory!”

And it was. And like most of Carl’s happy childhood memories, it eventually got stuck in an album and shoved in a bottom drawer where he didn’t have to look at it. Somehow, it was the happiest memories that brought the most pain.


	2. Forever

The twins nestled together in the otherwise empty bleachers, an array of snacks around them. Sabrina didn’t mind an audience for her gym battles, but this early on a Sunday morning most people were still in bed or just finishing breakfast and lazily contemplating going out later. Perhaps to a movie, or to meet a friend for coffee. Certainly not to go to Saffron City gym on the off chance there was an early gym battle taking place.

Sabrina was well-contented with her audience of two, even if it didn’t show on her face that she’d even noticed her two young charges sneak in the side door with their arms full of snacks and settle down in the bleachers. She never glanced in their direction, but she knew that Blanche had an open case of chocolate cupcakes on their lap and was picking up each individual cupcake to lick the icing and sprinkles off before putting it back.

She had to stifle a smile. Noire was going to be _so mad_ when they realized Blanche was doing that. And Blanche would be smug because they got an entire case of cupcakes to themself.

Noire’s attention was otherwise occupied for the moment, and impossible to ignore.

“Boo!” Noire shouted as the challenger’s Butterfree landed a lucky hit on Sabrina’s Hypno.

She pulled her attention back to the match, ignoring Noire as they cursed out her opponent in two languages. She should probably have a talk with Noire about their use of profanity, but found it hard to care about mere words. More important was the fact that they were distracting her, which she _would_ give them a talking-to about.

After she defeated this kid.

She eyed the challenger. This time it was a scrawny preteen with a head of curly dark hair and an air of mixed anxiety and determination. The boy either had a fondness for bug type Pokemon or had chosen them specifically for this match because they were both easy to acquire and strong against her psychic types.

But type advantage wasn’t everything.

She swapped Hypno for Alakazam and launched Psybeam. The transition between Pokemon and the attack was so quick and so smooth that the boy didn’t have time to react, and his Butterfree was hit dead-on.

“Yeeeeeaaaaaaah Auntie Sabrina! Take him down!” Noire cheered, standing on their chair and bouncing with excitement. Their small fist punched the air when Sabrina’s Alakazam landed another hit and the Butterfree thumped to the ground.

“He doesn’t use bug pokemon very well, does he?” Blanche remarked. They had finished licking icing off the cupcakes and were now devouring one. There was a ring of chocolate around their mouth and crumbs on their shirt. “His strategy doesn’t make sense.”

The kid flushed and shot an unhappy look in the twins’ direction. He probably hadn’t counted on receiving a running commentary on his every move. Maybe he had chosen to come on a Sunday morning precisely so that he wouldn’t have an audience. Yes, that seemed right. Stage fright, a fear of judgment.

It was unfortunate for him that Blanche and Noire were so judgmental.

“He should be using some of the status effects bug pokemon are best at,” Blanche continued. Noire punched them in the arm, making them yelp and scowl at their sibling. “What?”

“Shut up! He can hear you, you know! Quit giving him advice!” Noire snapped. They jumped back on their chair and waved their fists in the air. “You can do it, Auntie! We believe in you!”

The trainer’s next pokemon was a Kakuna, which cemented for Sabrina the fact that these Pokemon had been selected for the sole purpose of having a type advantage over her. Clearly, her opponent had gotten impatient after training Caterpie up to a Butterfree and come to challenge her before he had finished training Kakuna up to a Beedrill. Too bad it wouldn’t give him the advantage he hoped. After all, it took time to train and bond with a team of new Pokemon, while she and her psychic types were already a well-oiled machine. Sabrina didn’t even like fighting, but she was good at it.

In the midst of the ensuing battle, Noire happened to glance down to check on Blanche.

“Ewww, Blanche! Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Lick all the icing off!”

“It’s good.”

“It’s not good, it’s _gross._”

“Well, if you don’t like it, you should be happy that I ate it for you.”

“The icing isn’t gross, you’re gross!”

“No, you are!”

“No, you!”

Sabrina was so used to their petty squabbles by now that she barely noticed the twins yelling at each other, or Noire diving off the chair to tackle Blanche to the floor. But she wasn’t above taking advantage of it when it distracted her opponent.

Kakuna fainted. Since they had agreed to the best two out of three, that made Sabrina the victor.

She did the dance of telling the boy that he had done well and offering him a few pointers if he chose to come back, then went to deal with her errant adopted offspring.

She found them still rolling around in crushed cupcakes and chips, pulling each other’s hair. She sighed. They were covered in smushed up food so she really didn’t want to touch them, but unfortunately parenthood was her reality now.

She plucked Noire off Blanche, and they howled as Blanche refused to relinquish their grip on Noire’s pigtail. Sabrina had to pry Blanche’s fingers off and put her body between the two before they would stop grabbing at each other.

“Enough, you two. What are you doing here?” she asked, though she knew.

“We wanted to watch you battle,” Blanche said, blinking up at her from under chocolate-encrusted bangs, still lopsided from the last time they and Noire had cut each other’s hair.

“Yeah! You’re the best!” Noire said. Blanche had smushed a cupcake in their face, and chunks peeled off and fell to the floor as Noire bounced with excitement. “Hey, Auntie, we should get ice cream. Victory means we get to celebrate, and celebration means ice cream!”

She gave each of them a stern look. “I doubt either of you were paying enough attention to notice whether I won or not. You were too busy making a mess of my gym,” she said, indicating the mess at their feet.

It was hard to maintain the stern look as both children paused to process this information. Noire stopped bouncing and looked dumbfounded, while Blanche’s face scrunched up as though she had just presented them with a difficult puzzle that didn’t quite make sense.

“But you did win, didn’t you?” Blanche asked. They were still staring up at her with that bewildered look. “You always win. You’re the best. And that boy really wasn’t very good.”

However touching their faith in her battling prowess was, she still let them sweat for a minute before admitting that she did, in fact, win.

“Yes, I won. Now clean up this mess and wash your faces or I’m not taking you anywhere.”

Those faces broke into identical bright smiles. “And then ice cream?” Noire asked, tugging on the hem of her shirt and leaving a chocolatey smear. “We get ice cream, right?”

“You hardly need it, since it looks like you’ve already consumed all the junk food in the house.” Sabrina sent another pointed look at the mess at their feet. “Whatever you didn’t smear all over the floor, anyway. But yes, we can get ice cream.”

“Yaaaaaaaay!”

“Thank you, Auntie.”

##

The three of them gathered around the table at an ice cream parlour. There were only two other occupied tables, so they practically had the place to themselves. Noire had tried to wheedle Sabrina into buying the biggest sundae option for them and Blanche. While she didn’t give in on size, she did allow them to douse their bowls of ice cream with sauces and various toppings. If that meant they were bouncing off the walls later, well, that was what the training room was for.

Sabrina had opted for a vanilla milkshake instead of a sundae, and she sipped it as she scanned reports on her phone and listened to the twins chatter. While she was a full-time gym leader, she was also a Team Rocket executive. Recently those duties had started to become heavier, and Giovanni was starting to put pressure on her to ditch her gym leader role and work for Rocket full time.

The pay he was offering was more than a little tempting, but it meant relocating the twins. She eyed the children. Noire had said or done something to make Blanche laugh, and there was a cute little smile on Blanche’s face. They looked like any other kids out for ice cream. They had come a long way in such a short time, but they had endured so much trauma. She didn’t want to retraumatize them by moving them to a new place and turning their lives upside-down.

She should at least talk to them about it first. They were children yet, but they would need to understand what was happening.

“Noire, Blanche,” she said, getting the twins attention. They stopped sampling each other’s ice cream long enough to look at her, Noire smiling, Blanche calm and expectant. “I’ve been offered another position with Rocket Industries Inc.” Both twins blinked at her and Blanche began to look anxious, but they remained silent. “It has higher pay, but means I would have to leave my post as a gym leader and move far away.”

“Would you take us with you?” Blanche blurted, surprising her because they were usually the quiet one, the one who went with the flow. They stared at her with distress bordering on fear. “We get to go with you, right? You won’t send us to live with someone else - some stranger?”

She ruffled their hair. “Of course. I wouldn’t leave you behind,” she told them, and those tense shoulders relaxed fractionally. They were still anxious. She could feel it buzzing along her awareness like a swarm of restless Beedrill, but they were no longer terrified.

“_Duh,_ Blanche, Sabrina wouldn’t leave us behind,” Noire scoffed. They slipped their arms around Blanche’s neck and hauled them closer on the chair the twins shared until Noire’s sticky cheek was pressed against Blanche’s. “The three of us are a family. Forever and ever. Okay?”

“Okay,” Blanche said with a small smile, and they continued eating their ice cream.

Sabrina didn’t contradict them, though she knew better. The wheels of fate were already in motion, and these two would not be spared. She could only hope that life would treat them kindly when they were pulled from her grip.


	3. Brothers

It was hot in the cave, almost unbearably so. But Sol was used to it.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, ignoring his own light-headedness and the trails of sweat dripping slowly down his back and chest. It seemed silly to him that he had to do this - undergo training exercises and meditation in this hot cave. Lucifel was the one who would bond to the legendary bird Moltres, not him. Still, family rules were family rules, so he sat on the rough cave floor with his older brothers and younger sister and tried not to let his mind wander.

The next thing he knew, he was blinking at the ceiling while his brother Lucifel dabbed at his face with a cool cloth, looking amused.

His face flushed. “I did _not_ faint!” he declared to head off any teasing. He rolled away from Lucifel’s ministrations and took stock. He didn’t feel dizzy or sick, which indicated that he was probably right. To his relief, he hadn’t fainted in front of his brothers. He would never live it down if he had, ever.

Lucifel sat back on his heels, an amused grin on his face. “No, I think you just fell asleep,” he said. “_Again._”

“It’s just ‘cause it’s warm in here, and I have to hold still. I’ll feel better once I move around a bit.” His face still flaming, Sol marched toward the punching bags. To his embarrassment, Lucifel stood and followed him, holding out a water bottle.

“Remember to keep hydrated. Since you need to move around, maybe you could teach Candela how to roll like you promised last week,” he said.

Sol jerked a shoulder as if he were annoyed, but actually he didn’t mind helping Candela with her training. He was only a few years older than her, but teaching her how to do stuff made him feel important. “Fine. C’mere, Kittykat!”

Candela was sitting close to where Sol had been, absently scratching her ear. At Sol’s call, her eyes opened and blinked once, slowly. “What is it?” she asked, getting up and padding over on legs that had finally started to lose their baby stubbyness and get some real length.

Sol slung a sweaty arm over her shoulders and led her over to the mats. “I promised to teach you how to roll, didn’t I? Let’s do it.”

Her face brightened in a smile. “Really? Yay!”

Satisfied, Lucifel moved off to supervise Pele and Epifanio while Sol and Candela worked together to pull mats off the stack and set them up in an open area away from where their older brothers were training. Now that his body was in motion, Sol found it easier to put the stifling heat out of his mind as he showed Candela the steps. She mimicked him, somewhat clumsily, but he thought with pride that it was a good start.

But within ten minutes, Candela’s full lips settled into full-on pout-mode, leaving Sol thinking _‘Uh oh.’_

“What’s the matter Kittykat?” he asked, unwittingly mirroring Lucifel’s posture as he crouched in front of her when she sat on the mat in a sulky pile.

“I’m not doing it right,” she grumbled, pout still firmly in place. Her arms were crossed over her chest in childish temper, and she refused to look at him.

“You’re doing fine, Kittykat.”

“But I’m not doing it like you.”

“I’ve had more practice. You’ll get it. Just keep trying. Okay? Come on!” He took her hands and gave them a gentle tug, but she refused to budge.

“Don’t wanna.”

Sol leaned back, at a loss. Candela was very shy when out in public, but at home among family she was very stubborn and spoiled. And she was frustrated.

Sol opted for a different tactic. He poked her in the side, making her twitch. Then he poked her again, and again, until she had to uncross her arms to swat at his hands. “Awww, is widdle baby Candela frustrated?” he drawled. “Maybe she’s not ready to train with the big boys, huh? Maybe she needs to wait with Mommy?”

As expected, her small face screwed up with outrage, and she attempted to hit him with a fist. Even at six years old, Candela was a strong child, so Sol made sure the blow didn’t land. Laughing, he shifted away. “C’mon, Kittykat, show me you can do it.”

“No.” She glared at him, then scooted around on her butt until her back was to him.

Huh. Usually mocking her worked. Her pride would kick in, and then she’d just _have_ to prove that she could do whatever Sol said she couldn’t.

Before Sol could think of something else to get her motivated, Epifanio swooped in.

“What’s going on here?” Epifanio asked, scooping an arm around Candela’s stomach and scooping her up as she squealed so that she hung upside-down with her back against his chest. Her arms dangled limply for a moment before she reached up to grab his forearm for added security. “You guys loafing around? Huh? Don’t you know it’s time to traaaaaain?” he drew the last word out as he spun in three rapid circles.

Candela squealed again, then burst into involuntary laughter. “Nooooo, Epifanio! Put me down!”

“Nuh-uh. Slackers gotta face their big bro.” Keeping his head well away from Candela’s kicking feet, Epifanio began to do squats while keeping his grip on his sister. “See? The rest of us are working hard!”

Still laughing, Candela held out her hands to where Lucifel and Pele were boxing. “Lucifel!” she cried. “Lucifel, help! Epifanio’s being mean!”

Lucifel and Pele dropped their fists and stepped away from each other. Lucifel came over to see what the matter was as Pele looked on.

He grabbed Candela under the arms and swung her upright as Epifanio’s hands fell away. “Hey, sweetheart. What’s going on?”

“Candela’s sulking,” Epifanio said. “So I made her laugh.”

“Oh? That doesn’t sound like being mean to me. Hm?” With a few bounding steps Lucifel reached the stack of training mats and dumped Candela onto it. She bounced on impact, giggling uncontrollably. She rolled off the mats and landed on her hands and knees on the floor before raising to a kneeling position, a huge grin on her face.

“You guys are the _worst,_” she declared. “The worst!”

She yelped and ran as Epifanio dove for her. “No! Lucifel, stop him!” she laughed as he chased her around the cave.

“Come on, you two, time to settle down,” Lucifel said, clapping his hands sharply to get their attention. The big grin on his face took away from his teacher voice. “Now that you’ve got your blood moving, you can go back to meditation.”

Sol and Candela both groaned. Epifanio took advantage of Candela’s distraction to scoop her up and cart her to the meditation circle, where he dumped her on the floor. “You heard the man. Get to it, pipsqueak.” Leaving her there, he jogged over to take Lucifel’s place as Pele’s sparring partner.

Lucifel clapped a hand on Sol’s shoulder, the corners of his eyes still creased from laughter. “You too, Sol. You especially need your meditation. Temper your hotheadedness a bit,” he said.

Sol rolled his eyes but dropped down next to Candela, who had closed her eyes and was scrunching up her face in concentration. That was so not the way meditation worked that Sol couldn’t resist poking her. Her eyes flew open and she poked him back, viciously, in the side. She had pointy little fingers, and Sol had to bite back a laugh to keep from drawing his older brothers’ attention back to them and getting the whole thing started again.

“I hate meditating,” Candela confided in him once they’d settled down again and were pretending to try to meditate. Instead they were watching Lucifel referee the match between Pele and Epifanio. “It’s boring. I have too many thoughts.”

“Me too, Kittykat.”

“I wanna play.”

“I know, but we have to do our work first.” Part of being the older sibling, Sol had learned, was being the responsible one and enforcing the rules. It sucked.

Abandoning pretense, Candela leaned forward to brace her elbows on her knees as they watched Pele be defeated and Lucifel take his place. As he took his first swing at Epifanio, Sol couldn’t help but admire his form.

“Lucifel’s so cool,” Candela said.

“Yeah, yeah he is. But don’t tell him I said so.” Sol punctuated this warning with another poke, which Candela returned. A brief poke war ensued, which subsided when Pele sent them a warning look over his shoulder.

“But he _is_ the coolest,” Candela said once they were both pretending to meditate again. “And Mom says he’s next in line to bond with Moltres. That means he’ll be someone really important, right?”

“Yep. He’ll take over as head of Team Valor in Opal City. It’s a very important position. That’s why he trains as hard as he does.”

“I’m glad. Lucifel deserves to be somebody cool and important. Then everyone will see how awesome he is.”

“Yep. He’s looking this way! Quick, pretend to meditate!”

They both scrambled into the proper form and closed their eyes, so they missed Lucifel grinning at them and shaking his head as if his younger siblings’ antics never ceased to amuse him.


End file.
